Run your rig on renewable energy?

[SgtSpike]

Why buy energy when you can get it for free (from untapped renewable energy resources).

because the equipment to harvest said untapped renewable energy resources is decidedly non-free.

True but you would amortize the cost over xyz years and deduct the cost.

Yeah, and payback usually takes 20-40 years for backyard solar or wind equipment.  Which probably means, you'll never make your money back (since the equipment is likely to break down and/or need servicing in that time, which pushes back the payback period further, etc).

[1714062518]

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[1714062518]

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[BombaUcigasa]

HAHA sterling engine:

Actually don't laugh. A mining card will convert over 90% of it's spent energy as heat. You can run a stirling engine outside your PC case to recover 40-50% of the wasted heat as mechanical work or oscillating energy then convert that into electricity and back into the power supply

It also doubles as automatically tuned cooling installation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is not the sterling engine subject to carnot efficiency? 1- T_C / T_H ? Assuming you have something like ambient temp for T_C, and an efficient heat exchange between cards and whatever reservoir you are using for your sterling engine, I don't see how you would get more than 20% efficiency from a sterling engine even in the most extremely hypothetically favorable case.

This is correct. Please consider that you also get the benefit of active cooling, thus you do not require additional installations and costs for cooling your rigs if you have access to outside atmosphere. You may also supplement the cooling with some of the recycled energy. Also, about your percentage, did you use 20% as recovered electrical power or 20% as recovered energy?

[bcpokey]

HAHA sterling engine:

Actually don't laugh. A mining card will convert over 90% of it's spent energy as heat. You can run a stirling engine outside your PC case to recover 40-50% of the wasted heat as mechanical work or oscillating energy then convert that into electricity and back into the power supply

It also doubles as automatically tuned cooling installation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is not the sterling engine subject to carnot efficiency? 1- T_C / T_H ? Assuming you have something like ambient temp for T_C, and an efficient heat exchange between cards and whatever reservoir you are using for your sterling engine, I don't see how you would get more than 20% efficiency from a sterling engine even in the most extremely hypothetically favorable case.

This is correct. Please consider that you also get the benefit of active cooling, thus you do not require additional installations and costs for cooling your rigs if you have access to outside atmosphere. You may also supplement the cooling with some of the recycled energy. Also, about your percentage, did you use 20% as recovered electrical power or 20% as recovered energy?

I simply calculated the efficiency of the engine using carnots theoretical limit, ambient temp (estimated at 22C) as your cold reservoir, and a small hot reservoir that equalizes its temperature at about 90C, I feel these to be reasonable if not generous numbers. This should be equivalent to the ratio of Work_Done / Heat_into_System however.

In my imaginings you would couple the hot side to some sort of active water cooling for the cards, but you may have a more efficient method in mind to lower cost.

[enmaku]

Why buy energy when you can get it for free (from untapped renewable energy resources).

because the equipment to harvest said untapped renewable energy resources is decidedly non-free.

True but you would amortize the cost over xyz years and deduct the cost.

Yeah, and payback usually takes 20-40 years for backyard solar or wind equipment.  Which probably means, you'll never make your money back (since the equipment is likely to break down and/or need servicing in that time, which pushes back the payback period further, etc).

Wow, hostile.

I *do* understand your point y'know... At the temperature differential between the surface of my GPU and room temperature in my apartment maximum Carnot efficiency is quite low, around 23.3%. I'm also aware that you're extremely lucky to capture even half of that with a stirling or any kind of thermal engine, thus converting 11.65% of waste heat back into energy. Still, with a 5970 converting almost 300 watts into heat at very high efficiency, recovering a mere 11.65% of that would result in recovering almost 35 watts. Combine this with the fact that this 35 watts recovered also equals 35 watts (~119.4 BTU/H) of heat that I don't have to air-condition away and my actual savings is nearly 50 watts. Granted at my local electric rates this is only about $4.06 savings per month per card but it also means a fair amount of heat that I no longer have to deal with at *all* and beyond a certain scale operation, it'd certainly be worth it.

Thanks for calling me an idiot, I usually take it as a sign that I'm at least doing something interesting enough to piss someone off.

[SgtSpike]

I'm not trying to be hostile, just speaking the truth.  I get tired of all the lies about green energy that are spread around.

[bcpokey]

I'm not trying to be hostile, just speaking the truth.  I get tired of all the lies about green energy that are spread around.

I think he was misquoting and intended to reply to me instead. I was hostile to his snarky dickhead reply, and he seems surprised by that. I don't think your more calm normal responses are interpreted as hostile.

[ivank2139]

If you can generate your own electricity why bother with mining?  I thought about adding solar Panels to my home too compensate for the mining rigs, then thought why not just add more panels and sell electricity back to  the power company?  No reason to bother with a mining rig right?  turns out eh cost of a decently large solar installation, say 5Kw is a lot of money even if the tax rebate is included and the Florida incentives are added in.

[BombaUcigasa]

If you can generate your own electricity why bother with mining?  I thought about adding solar Panels to my home too compensate for the mining rigs, then thought why not just add more panels and sell electricity back to  the power company?  No reason to bother with a mining rig right?  turns out eh cost of a decently large solar installation, say 5Kw is a lot of money even if the tax rebate is included and the Florida incentives are added in.

If you can't build your own silicon GPU and silicon solar cells, why bother with mining

[bcpokey]

If you can generate your own electricity why bother with mining?  I thought about adding solar Panels to my home too compensate for the mining rigs, then thought why not just add more panels and sell electricity back to  the power company?  No reason to bother with a mining rig right?  turns out eh cost of a decently large solar installation, say 5Kw is a lot of money even if the tax rebate is included and the Florida incentives are added in.

Not all states allow for resale of electricity to the grid. There are some states that have a "zero-net" energy policy, they'll allow you to generate your own energy, consume and resell but you can't profit from it, the best you can do is a $0 energy bill.

But yeah, solar energy ain't cheap regardless. As I said, if alternatives were really competitive or superior, they'd have taken over traditional. There are other benefits however, so they aren't a totally dead idea.

[kloinko1n]

No, if you want to save the environment then don't start mining.

I don't see the universal validity of your argument.
If you'd happen to need a lot of warm (not hot, process) water, you could use a water cooled mining rig to heat that water.
So instead of purchasing energy to solely heat your water, you additionally generate bitcoins with it.
Well, electrically, that is.
Anyway, the price difference between electrical heating and gas (or oil or whatever other fuel) heating is the cost for mining.

[killer2021]

Why buy energy when you can get it for free (from untapped renewable energy resources).

because the equipment to harvest said untapped renewable energy resources is decidedly non-free.

True but you would amortize the cost over xyz years and deduct the cost.

Yeah, and payback usually takes 20-40 years for backyard solar or wind equipment.  Which probably means, you'll never make your money back (since the equipment is likely to break down and/or need servicing in that time, which pushes back the payback period further, etc).

Yes solar and wind are expensive hence the reason I'd rather use micro-hydro. Currently that's the cheapest form of energy I know of.

Also micro-hydro not that expensive to install. All you need is some plastic pipes connected to a generator for a BASIC setup. The real issue is finding a good location where you could install the micro hydro.